


The Child of the Forest

by wednesday_d



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Christmas Fluff, Fairy Tale Style, Gen, Kid Derek, M/M, Pre-Slash, kid stiles, or at least i tried to make it look like a fairy tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:39:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesday_d/pseuds/wednesday_d
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>On Christmas, Stiles gets the figurines of all four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a new set of pajamas with Spider-Man on them, a stain on the carpet from spilling his hot cocoa in excitement and a knock on the door.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Stiles doesn't know where the tales came from, only that his mom used to tell them every night to him before she died. It's all that he has left of her, the tales about the <i>children of the forest</i> that could talk to animals because they shared life with them. It's on a white evening in the middle of December when Stiles finds his own very real sort of fairytale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Child of the Forest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moose_mccall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moose_mccall/gifts).



> Written for the Sterek Secret Santa 2013 for [Kerrie](http://reallyverytylered.tumblr.com/) who asked for something fluffy and Christmas-y. I had a sudden vision of Stiles cuddling a puppy in the snow and if there's anything fluffier than that, then I've never heard of it.
> 
> Kerrie, thanks fot the awesome prompt and I'm really glad you enjoyed the fic <3

In a little town nestled at the foot of high and misty mountains, there once lived a happy couple. The woman was a short little thing, sweet with round, bright eyes, and so delicate. The man had wide shoulders, a loud laughter and lines from smiling on his face. They were happy and they loved each other very much and in the night, the woman would curl in the man’s arms and tell him stories her mother had once told her; stories about the mountains and its children and how they could communicate with the animals because they were one with them. She would add and make up her own as she went along, but the origin of them was always the same.

The years passed and the woman had a baby, a pretty little boy with a cute button nose and big eyes like hers and a wide smile, albeit toothless, like his father’s.

And the woman kept on telling her stories, passing them on to a pair of new, tiny, eager ears.

The baby grew up to a chubby toddler, stumbling around, squealing with laughter as his mother play-chased him around their yard and the father watched on with watchful eyes and a deeply felt contentment.

But as stories goes, this one too had a bad guy in it. The father was the town’s sheriff and as it so often happens, someone got bitter and angry at him for arresting them. The criminal got away and followed the sheriff home, wanting to harm him, destroy his life as he thought the sheriff had done to him.

And since not every story has a good ending, the sheriff and his wife’s story abruptly ended that very night when the angry man got inside their house and attacked the woman.

The sheriff mourned the loss of his son’s mother and blamed himself and the cruel nature of humans. The family’s days grew so dark in grief that one day, not too long after her death, the sheriff took his son, a few of their things and moved away from the humans and their evilness. He moved them to the cabin in the woods where his wife had spent her summers growing up and vowed to never let humanity’s darkness stain his boy like it did with the woman he loved.

“Daddy?” the boy asked as they were settling in, barely five years of age and already carrying a deep sadness within him, “will we be here for a long time?”

“Maybe, son. Maybe.”

~*~

The first summer passes easily enough. The sheriff starts calling his son ‘Stiles’, just like his wife had done in moments of extreme affection, mainly involving cuddling and tickling, and it seems to cheer them both, keeping something of hers like that in their lives.

Stiles tries to help his dad plant vegetables and pretty flowers that his mom used to like, but mostly he ends up playing in the mud and rolling around in the dirt, occasionally wandering off chasing butterflies and dragonflies.

Fall comes soon enough, though, and Stiles spends the better half of September sick and crying about how the rain has killed all of his butterflies and how his mom would know what to do and how unfair it all is.

It’s not easy for either of them, but winter waits around the corner and the sheriff needs to prepare for the low temperatures and the snowfall and Stiles needs time to realize that no matter how much he’s crying for him mom, she will never answer again.

The first snowflakes touch the roof of their cabin on All Hollow’s eve and Stiles spends it on a chair stacked with extra cushions in front of a window, drinking spiced hot chocolate and kicking his feet in the air.

Later that night the Sheriff puts on _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ and unfortunately for his dad, Stiles picks up the tune of _What’s This_ and hums it all through November. And if the Sheriff thought that is where Stiles’ levels of excitement could reach, he is proven wrong on the very first day of December when Stiles gets up at 5.30 am and wakes his dad with ‘is it Christmas yet, daddy?’.

December is a difficult month in the Stilinski household. Stiles goes on and on about how amazing Christmas is going to be, having a vague recollection of last year’s celebration, mostly remembering all the cake his mom had let him eat and all the presents he had gotten. He keeps singing Christmas songs with gibberish lyrics and the Sheriff tries not to drown his sorrow every evening in a glass of amber liquid too much while remembering all the Christmas Eves of his past when he had his wife by his side.

It happens on an evening like that. Stiles is huddled with a bunch of blankets in the armchair, stuffed toys and picture books littering the floor around him and the Sheriff is dozing on the couch, an empty glass and a half empty bottle sitting on the table in front of him.

Stiles doesn’t really know what to do with himself because his toys are boring and his dad seems to need the sleep and he wants to be a good kid and not disturb him, but he’s so _bored_.

It has been snowing for the past couple of days, a pretty, fluffy, white blanket covering the woods and the cabin and Stiles is forbidden from going out alone especially without his jacket and boots. But the frosty trees outside the window paint such a pretty picture, prettier than all the pictures in his books put together, so Stiles grabs his blanket, slides off the armchair silently and pads towards the window.

It takes some effort and a lot of wiggling around but he manages to get on the table that’s right beneath the window. He crawls across it tagging his blanket with him and settles his butt as close as he can to the windowsill. He presses a small hand upon the frosty glass and looks outside with wide eyes.

The land around their cabin is surrounded by pine and fir trees, all blanketed with frosty white. There are some trees without their leaves, looking naked and sad among the others, branches broken from the heavy snow, but these trees have icicles hanging from them, spilling the light of the sun, making them look like precious crystals.

“So pretty,” Stiles mumbles to himself. His breath is fogging up the glass and he leans back scrunching his nose and wiping the condensation with the edge of his blanket. Once it’s clean he looks outside again, but this time his breath catches in his throat.

It’s small, definitely, but so stark clear, the black against the white snow demanding his immediate attention.

A slow smile spreads across Stiles’ face and his amber eyes light up.

“Puppy,” he says quietly, and then, louder, “puppy! Dad, it’s a puppy!” He turns around but his dad is deep in sleep, no chance of him hearing Stiles.

He turns back around and he leans his forehead against the window and grins as wide as he can. “Puppy, puppy, puppypuppypuppy,” he repeats giggling.

The puppy lifts its head towards him, sniffing at his direction and then looks straight at Stiles. It has round blue eyes and a cute muzzle and a slowly waggling tail and Stiles needs to be out of the house and next to that puppy squishing it his arms five minutes ago.

“Hi,” he says and the puppy tilts its head like it’s listening to him. “I am gonna come and pet you,” he goes on and it’s the single most brilliant idea he has ever had.

He shuffles over at the edge of the table, climbs down carefully, and plumps down next to the door where his snow boots are.

“Puppy, puppy, puppy, itty bitty fluffy puppy,” he sings to himself. Once he’s ready he looks over at his dad, still asleep on the couch and slowly, he lifts up on his tippy toes and turns the latch on the door.

He makes sure he opens it gently and silently, his tongue curled over his upper lip in his effort to not make any incriminating noises.

He steps out and his upper lip where his tongue has wetted the skin is the first part of his body that registers the cold. He wraps his blanket around him and looks over to where his puppy is standing.

“Hi!” he calls to it, moving in its direction but not getting off the deck. That would be A Very Bad Thing, his daddy had told him. “My name is Stiles! Do you want to be my puppy?” he asks, adding, “pretty please?” because he is supposed to have manners even if he’s talking to a cute, black furball.

The puppy _woofs_ at him and trots over, navigating the thick layer of snow easier that Stiles has ever managed. Once it’s reached the steps of the deck it stops and looks up at him, once again tilting its head, the bright blue eyes looking almost inquisitive.

“My puppy!” Stiles squeals in delight and climbs down the three steps that bring him right over the pup.

It’s bigger than it looked through the window and from this close Stiles can make out the light grey streaks in its fur and the almost white of its paws.

He squats down, extends his hand like his dad had shown him with the dogs they used to have at the police station and once the puppy looks satisfied with sniffing all around Stiles’ fingers, he opens his arms and with a cry of joy grabs the puppy and crushes it to his chest.

The poor thing lets out a squeak but it looks more surprised than anything and since all it does is wiggle around in his arms, Stiles just continues to aggressively cuddle it.

“You are going to be my bestest friend forever,” Stiles informs it happily. Its little body is emanating heat even if the fur is a bit cold and wet from the snow, but so thick and soft and perfect. Stiles is already imagining it curled up next to him in bed, or chasing butterflies with him once spring comes, or eating berries and little bits of grilled chicken straight from Stiles’ hand.

A few minutes pass like that, with Stiles petting its head and promising the puppy all sorts of great adventures, but soon enough there’s a loud bark from somewhere in the woods and the puppy stops its purring content sounds and whines in the direction the call had come from.

“No,” Stiles says. “No, you’re my puppy, now. _My_ friend.” The puppy looks back at him with sad eyes and licks Stiles’ cheek, dipping its wet little muzzle to Stiles’ neck and sniffles. It sounds sad and Stiles doesn’t know how he knows this, but he clenches his eyes tight and sniffles on his own a bit.

“Is it your mommy?” he asks the puppy and it just bumps its nose against Stiles’ in answer. “I guess she missed you, huh?”

Stiles reluctantly lets go of his new best friend and takes a step back. “Will you visit me? We can play out here, dad would let me, I know.”

It barks once in reply and then turns away and disappears among the trees.

A few minutes later his dad finds him crying in his blanket, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his pajama shirt and frozen to the bone. There’s some shouting, a lot of hugging and rubbing of hands over his back before his dad deposits him in the tub filled with hot water.

“Stiles, there are no dogs in the forest,” his dad says for the tenth time, “please don’t go petting wolves and wild animals, it’s not safe, we’ve been over this, remember?”

“But it was so nice, dad. It licked my cheek and let me pet it and we cuddled and it was so fluffy! Please, dad!”

“It’s not coming back, Stiles. It was not a dog. And if it comes back…we can’t keep a wolf as a pet.”

“But-”

“What if it has parents? And sisters and brothers? A whole family? Would it be okay to just take it away from them?”

“I guess not,” Stiles finally admits, head tilted down and lower lip stuck out in a pout. “But what if- _if_ , what if it’s not a wolf?”

“Stiles,” his dad begins with a sigh, “there are no d-”

“No! What if it was a child of the forest?” Stiles points out hopefully. “Mom always said they were one with the animals? Daddy, what if it’s a child of the forest?”

There’s a look in his dad’s eyes that Stiles can’t quite understand but he tries to grin as widely as he can at him, encouraged by the fact his dad hasn’t yet said no.

“Then,” the sheriff tries carefully, “then, it’s not really our decision to make, is it? And you couldn’t keep a child of the forest as a pet. _They_ choose you, your mother always said.”

Stiles nods emphatically because he remembers this. Sometimes he tries to think back on what his mom smelled like, or what she sounded like and he gets frustrated and then sad because he has forgotten a lot of things, but her stories, he repeats them to himself almost every night. So yeah, Stiles remembers this.

“So, if it comes back like I asked it to…can we play together?”

The sheriff lets out a weary sigh and says, “I suppose so.”

~*~

On Christmas, Stiles gets the figurines of all four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a new set of pajamas with Spider-Man on them, a stain on the carpet from spilling his hot cocoa in excitement and a knock on the door.

His dad frowns like he does when he’s caught by surprise and tells Stiles to stay where he is while he checks who’s at the door.

Stiles, of course, gets up and pads over to the other side of the room leaning around his dad’s legs as he’s opening the door.

There’s a boy standing there, a few years older than Stiles, with black hair and hazel eyes and a frown that’s mellowed by his blushing cheeks.

“Uh,” Stiles hears he dad hesitate. “Can I help you?” the sheriff asks as he takes a step forward. Stiles looks up to him and sees his dad peering around outside. “Are you lost?”

The boy looks down briefly at Stiles and then at his shoes and then back up at Stiles’ dad and shakes his head.

“Where are your parents? Are you alone?”

Stiles is clutching at his dad’s pants, half hiding behind his legs, half trying to find the courage to step around them. He wants to put his finger between the boy’s eyebrows and try to lift them up, see what his face would look like then.

“I’m here to play with Stiles,” the boy finally says and Stiles, in his surprise, takes a step aside and looks up to his dad.

“Me?” he asks.

“Do you know Stiles?” the sheriff asks confused.

“He- he said I could come back,” the boy looks back down, moving his weight from one leg to another. “Um, I’m Derek. Stiles- he said I could come back and we could play. So…” he lets the sentence hung, looking unsure and frowning even more.

Both father and son look at this Derek kid with equally surprised expressions but it’s Stiles who makes the connection first.

“Are you my puppy?” he asks, smiling brightly when Derek’s eyes focus back on him. “You came back for me?”

Derek looks down again, shrugs one shoulder and before he can answer, Stiles is jumping at him and tackling him to the ground squealing with delight.

“Not your _puppy_ ,” Derek mumbles, but hugs him back making sure Stiles doesn’t fall to the cold, wet wood of the deck.

It turns out, it’s a better Christmas than the sheriff was expecting.


End file.
